Category Archives: Research

Government, Medical, Research, Science, Scotland, Society

Scotland: ‘Stem Cell Research’…

A FUTURE VISION

STEM CELLS are cells that are at an early stage of development and have the ability to turn into almost any other type of cell in the body. There are embryonic stem cells, which are derived from embryos, and adult stem cells, which can be found in some adult tissue, such as bone marrow.

By developing these cells, scientists hope they can produce a form of repair kit for the human body and reverse the effects of chronic diseases that doctors cannot cure today.

As yet, none of the very many potential treatments is ready for use in patients. However, Professor Sir Graeme Catto, chairman of the Scottish Stem Cell Network, has previously said that Scotland is at the “leading edge” in the field of stem cell research. A belief has always existed that the country should be ready to invest should a breakthrough occur.

LIVER

Scientists based at Edinburgh University have generated human liver cells from embryonic stem cells. It is ultimately hoped they could be used to treat patients with liver disease, sparing patients a potentially vital wait for a liver transplant. Liver disease is ranked as the fifth most common cause of death in the UK and its incidence is known to be rising.

However, while scientists and researchers are investigating how such generated liver cells could or might be used in treatment, there is another field where they could revolutionise medicine sooner.

… “STEM CELLS are cells that are at an early stage of development and have the ability to turn into almost any other type of cell in the body.”

Pure liver cells grown in a laboratory could be used to test drugs for potentially harmful side-effects before they are trialled in patients. Problems in the liver serve as a warning sign when a substance is toxic. Currently, livers left by donors which are not of a good enough quality for transplants are used to test new drugs, but supply of these is restricted. Typically, though, an unlimited stash of liver cells could improve the way new drugs for treating the liver and other organs are tested.

BONE

Radical new ways of mending bones and cartilage using a patient’s own stem cells are also being explored.

This line of work could have a major impact on treating conditions such as osteoarthritis (sometimes known as ‘wear and tear arthritis’) as well as accident victims whose bones have been shattered.

At Edinburgh University scientists are looking to culture bone-forming cells by taking stem cells from the patient’s own bone marrow or even from their blood.

They hope, in time, to be able to place these in the affected area by using a special mesh, coated with a drug that aims to protect and stimulate their growth into the bone or cartilage needed to repair the damage.

Previously, the team involved with this work were awarded £1.4 million in government grants and subsidies to develop and advance the technique. At the time the team said it intended testing in hospitals within two years.

In addition, Aberdeen University is also looking to utilise adult stem cells in aiding the recovery of joints. Researchers have been successful in isolating adult stem cells from joint membranes in patients as old as 101. Already, scientists in Aberdeen have managed to grow these cells into tissue in the laboratory and in animal models. They seek in being able to implant tissue or inject the cells into patients, and are also investigating whether drugs could be given to people with joint problems to stimulate the cells already present to solve the problem themselves. The immediate hope is that treatments could prevent people with lesions in their joints from developing osteoarthritis. These patients are often known to be young sports enthusiasts.

HEART

Clinicians and scientific researchers at Glasgow University are working to make heart muscle and blood vessel cells for repairing the circulatory system.

Such cells are being developed from embryonic stem cells and then assessed to see how well they function. For example, does the cultured heart muscle tissue beat as effectively as that which works automatically from birth?

BLOOD

Patients needing bone marrow transplants or blood transfusions could eventually be treated with blood stem cells grown in a laboratory.

Scientists and medical researchers at Edinburgh University have been able to multiply blood stem cells taken from mice and other rodents 150 times in the lab. They ultimately hope human blood cells for transplant could be produced in a similar way as is being used to treat patients with cancers such as leukaemia and lymphoma, genetic blood diseases and patients who have lost a lot of blood through injury. This could reduce pressure on blood donor supplies.

Meanwhile, colleagues at Glasgow University are attempting to generate blood by using embryonic stem cells to make red blood cells. If they succeed in creating large quantities it could also help preserve donor blood reserves. Researchers hope to start early clinical tests within the next year or so.

DIABETES

Using stem cells to help patients with diabetes produce insulin is an area of research being explored around the world.

In Aberdeen, though, scientists are currently trying to understand which stem cells give rise to insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. By knowing this, they hope to throw light on how diabetes can be tackled using stem cell technology.

NERVES

Treatment to reverse the effects of the neurological condition multiple sclerosis are being explored at the MS research centre set-up using a very kind donation from JK Rowling (the author of Harry Potter). In MS myelin, the sheath that protects nerve fibres becomes damaged causing the transfer of neurological messages from the brain to be disrupted.

At the moment doctors can offer patients little to reverse the growing damage so most sufferers become increasingly debilitated.

Earlier, Professor Charles ffrench-Constant, director of the Edinburgh-based centre, said he wanted to find a way to make the body rebuild damaged myelin using stem cells and biotechnology.

Ostensibly, there are a surprisingly high number of stem cells in the brain and his centre hopes to recruit them in an attempt to repair the myelin.

Professor ffrench-Constant said that he envisages patients receiving drugs to activate the process in 10 to 15 years.

CANCER

There is a relatively new theory that cancers themselves grow out of a specific population of cancer stem cells. If these could be identified, there is hope doctors could stop cancers from even developing in the first place.

A team at Dundee University are investigating the possibility that some forms of colon cancer develop from malfunctioning stem cells in the gut. Studying gut stem cells in normal and cancerous conditions may tell us how the disease might be treated.

IN PRAISE OF ADVANCING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN SCOTLAND

Scientists in Scotland are at the leading edge of stem-cell-research. Potentially, it could change the course of medicine.

We could be on the brink of discoveries that would allow far more effective treatments of conditions such as leukaemia, shattered bones, colon cancer, neurological conditions such as MS or the growing epidemic of diabetes.

The promise of life-saving and life-enhancing treatment for millions of people as a result of such breakthroughs, however, is posing a challenge almost as taxing as the scientific ones: how to ensure the researchers involved are not tapped by other academic institutions or commercial companies who may be able to offer far higher salaries and profit sharing schemes. Poaching certain individuals could stifle or even set-back promising initiatives once started.

Much of the research does remain theoretical. The dangers, though, are all too real. Edinburgh University, for instance, has already lost Professor Austin Smith, “the father of stem-cell research”, who was invited to set-up a new centre in Cambridge. The prospect of a team heading south in his wake was averted only by joint action by the then Scottish Executive and the combined research universities.

It is an inevitable fact that world-class scientists will be head-hunted by leading research institutions and global companies who have vast swaying power in terms of salaries offered. They can not only offer attractive salaries and inducement schemes but modern state-of-the-art research facilities, which, arguably, is what will swing the balance for scientists at such a level.

 

THE SUGGESTION from Sir Graeme Catto, president of the General Medical Council and a former chief scientist for Scotland, that a fund to prevent researchers being poached as soon as they make a breakthrough deserves to be thoroughly explored. One of the ways to ensure that the best scientists remain in Scotland is to establish a critical mass of genuine expertise. A vital beginning has been made with the Translational Medicine Research Collaboration, between the universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, with Scottish Enterprise and the NHS in Scotland.

Translational medicine emboldens the desire in treating disease from laboratory findings, or, put simply, from ‘bench to bedside’. The essence of that concept must be encouraged if Scotland’s increasing number of biotech companies is to realise their full economic potential: already, major pharmaceutical companies, such as Wyeth, recognise the point. Recently, for instance, the company bought over Haptogen, a company established to prevent scientists at Aberdeen University being induced into the drain of scientific expertise from Scotland to Cambridge and London. Such commercial collaboration can help resist, or prevent, an exodus.

International academic exchanges can also help. Exchanges such as those established between Dundee and Singapore by Sir David Lane, the world-renowned expert who discovered one of the prominent genes behind cancer. The vital work of our scientists, at home, must be nurtured. But, with Government funding more tightly stretched than ever before, Sir Graeme’s plea to benefactors was a timely one. With continued uncertainty in the world’s financial and capital markets, a new investment perspective within medical research will produce no other satisfying results more than that to which leads to a cure for a disease.

Notes:

  1. To date, scientists in Scotland have registered five stem-cell lines with the UK stem-cell bank. There are around 45 registrations in the bank and not all come from within the UK.
  2. Sir Graeme predicts that over the next decade there will be sudden advances which make the prospects of treatment more tangible.
  3. The ‘quick access cash pool’ which could start at around £250,000 need not be provided purely by the Scottish Government, but also from “benefactors”.
  4. None of the potential treatments are available today and would need rigorous testing before being licensed for human use.
  5. Scottish Enterprise funds the Scottish Stem Cell Network: in 2007 it launched a £5m Stem Cells Translational Fund.
  6. In providing public funding for research there is a difficult balance to be struck between the need to ensure best use of funds, which is necessarily time consuming, and the pace of research.
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Britain, Government, Health, Medical, Research, Science, Society

Research funding and support for dementia is urgently needed…

DEMENTIA

One of the greatest benefits derived from the advancement of medical science is the longer life expectancy people now have. But it brings with it an array of concerns and responsibilities, chief among them the need to come to terms with the fast-rising incidence of dementia. For far too long now it has been the poor relation of other forms of medical research, which subsequently has meant dementia attracting an inadequate level of research and public funding and support.

Dementia research is decades behind, for example, cancer, with six times more UK researchers working on cancer than dementia. This week, though, the Alzheimer’s Society which is calling for greater research and public support to treat the condition will receive a powerful endorsement for its work from the first G8 dementia summit. Dementia is an appalling and harrowing condition which destroys the final few years of a sufferer’s life, stripping them of their dignity, and the profound effects it has on families and those who provide care for the sufferer.

It is the growing incidence of the condition, however, that should now compel concerted action. Current estimates suggest some 35.6 million people around the world are living with dementia, including around 800,000 in the UK. Because of an ageing population, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that the number of people suffering with the illness could reach 115.4 million by 2050. In the UK alone, there are likely to be nearly a million people with the condition by the end of 2020.

David Cameron has said that tackling the condition is a ‘personal priority’. The Prime Minister has already announced a UK plan on research, care and awareness and that funding for dementia research will increase to around £66 million by 2015. Such announcements are always welcome but, given the scale of the challenge, seem far from adequate. The enormity of the problem in dealing with such an intractable disease needs to be recognised for what it is and for campaigners to pursue both research and funding support with the utmost vigour.

ALZHEIMER’S BRAIN SCAN

NHS PATIENTS are to benefit from a new brain scan that will help doctors confirm or rule out a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

It is to be announced that Britain will be the first place in the world where the revolutionary technique will be available for free.

The test will mean that, for the first time, doctors will be able to definitively rule out Alzheimer’s in some patients for five years. Currently, one in five cases of the disease is misdiagnosed.

It could also help doctor s to confirm an existing diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, ensuring people get the treatment they need.

The test – which is believed to cost £810 per patient – involves giving the patient a tiny amount of a radioactive chemical called Amyvid which binds to the tell-tale plaques in the brain of a Alzheimer’s sufferer.

This chemical will show up the plaques on a brain scan for the first time, allowing doctors to definitively rule out Alzheimer’s in a patient for at least five years if no plaques are present. It means the patient will not be given potentially harmful treatments if they don’t need them.

Until this breakthrough, it has not been possible to definitively diagnose someone as having the disease until after their death.

Examinations of the brains of people who have died show that one in five people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s did not in fact have it, meaning they may have been given the wrong treatment while they were alive.

Plaques, however, can be present in other conditions and the new brain scan alone will not be enough to pinpoint the disease.

Dementia is one of the main causes of disability in old age, ahead of cancer, heart disease and stroke. Whilst there are 800,000 people with dementia in the UK, about two thirds of those are Alzheimer sufferers. By 2021, more than a million people are expected to have dementia. The disease is being described as ‘the key health challenge of this generation’.

The Amyvid test – developed by US drugs firm Lilly – has previously been used elsewhere in the world, but only through private health schemes.

The use of the technique by the NHS will be the first time it has been available as part of a state-funded health system. The first patients to benefit will be scanned at Charing Cross Hospital, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, in London.

Although a negative scan would mean a person highly unlikely to develop Alzheimer’s in the next five years that would be no guarantee that the condition could develop in future years.

12 December 2013…

PREVENTATIVE MEASURES

The scientific and medical fields have been waiting for a breakthrough drug treatment for Alzheimer’s for decades. An astonishing £25 billion has been spent worldwide on trying to develop one, and yet we still don’t have anything that can slow down, let alone stop, the disease.

It’s certainly true that drugs such as Aricept may help some patients with their symptoms, but only for a short while.

That leaves patients and their families in the hopeless position of waiting for the drug and pharmaceutical companies to discover a treatment.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be like that. There are other options.

There are things that can be done to improve the situation right now – but governments, charities and other research bodies need to make a long overdue switch to a new strategy: preventing the disease.

What needs to be understood is that nearly all that £25 billion has been spent researching and testing ways to stop just one thing that goes wrong in the human brain.

The idea has been to develop drugs to block or clear amyloid plaque – the sticky damaged protein associated with dying neurons.

It was a reasonable idea, but concentrating on it exclusively – without even considering any other options – has condemned millions to a decline that might have been slowed down or prevented. How many billions do you have to spend without a result before admitting it’s time to also look elsewhere?

Some of the money should have been spent on research into its prevention. If you can’t reverse the damage, the most obvious step is to stop it happening it all.

Scientists and medical practitioners know it is possible. In fact, research suggests that a strong commitment to prevention could cut the number of Alzheimer’s sufferers by 20 per cent by 2025.

One key thing that needs to be addressed is people’s diet. For instance, switching to a so-called Mediterranean diet – rich in fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and olive oil – could have a real impact.

The G8 summit on dementia in London this week is aiming to develop a co-ordinated global action plan for tackling Alzheimer’s. A statement, signed by more than 100 leading international dementia experts from 36 countries, has been sent to health ministers calling for a major shift in direction.

These experts believe that any action plan can’t just involve drugs – it is imperative, they say, that in cutting your risk of developing Alzheimer’s requires improvements in diet and lifestyle.

Many lifestyle factors linked to heart disease also increase your risk of Alzheimer’s including high blood pressure, smoking and cholesterol levels.

More important still is that there are virtually no public funds available for trials to find out how exactly they contribute to Alzheimer’s.

Alarmingly, so little in the UK is spent on research into Alzheimer’s prevention. Over the past six years, UK Research Councils, which are funded by the Government, spent £140 million studying Alzheimer’s.

Yet, just 1p in every £1,000 went on prevention. And of the additional £49 million for dementia research pledged by this Government last year, not a single penny went on prevention.

This is tragic. For years researchers have had a chance to do something that had a reasonable chance of significantly reducing the number of people developing this disease. The Government and charities, however, have continually ignored it. Instead, billions went on a drug programme that was never shown to work.

Some people might wonder how experts can say prevention will definitely work and yet also claim it hasn’t been researched. In fact, prevention has been tested – by accident.

The proportion of people developing dementia has, surprisingly, been falling for the past 20 years. The medical journal, The Lancet, reported earlier this year that estimates for dementia in England should be reduced by almost 25 per cent.

This is partly the result of a deliberate prevention programme – but one aimed at heart disease, not Alzheimer’s. For the past two decades, people have been encouraged to make healthy lifestyle changes, such as stopping smoking and lowering blood pressure to protect their heart.

This, along with other social factors such as improved educational opportunities, has had a clear impact on Alzheimer’s risk. A healthy heart makes for a healthy brain. But just relying on measures already in place to cut heart disease risk isn’t nearly enough.

Although fewer people suffer heart disease, there has been a huge rise in obesity and diabetes, both also major risk factors for Alzheimer’s. Cutting Alzheimer’s rates is going to involve tackling diabetes risk factors as well.

Despite little funding, there have been pockets of important research on prevention.

Three years ago a controlled trial was undertaken in Oxford that showed brain shrinkage was cut by an impressive 90 per cent in people with memory problems after they took high levels of B vitamins.

Scientists in the U.S., Germany and Australia have also shown that supplements of omega 3 fatty acids, as well as exercise may cut the risk of Alzheimer’s.

Exercise seems to cut risk in several ways, including increasing oxygen available to the brain and encouraging new brain cells to grow. It also makes blockages in the brain’s blood supply less likely, cuts damaging inflammation and reduces depression (which raises Alzheimer’s risk).

A number of researchers now suggest that eating lots of sugar and other refined carbohydrates, which raise glucose levels in the blood, contribute more to diabetes risk than saturated fat does.

But only a proper programme of research will show for sure.

This is already starting to happen on the continent. The European Dementia Prevention Initiative has four trials underway looking at the effect on Alzheimer’s when you target heart disease risks and other lifestyle factors. The big pharmaceutical companies are never going to do this sort of research because it doesn’t make them money: they can’t patent exercise or nutrients.

What can make a difference is dedicated government funding for prevention.

More is needed than just money. We need a shift from thinking that only drug research and genetics and cell biology are proper science. It is very exciting being at the cutting edge of brain science, unravelling complex gene changes that cause neurons to die and the forming of damaged protein clumps. Big gains, though, in heart disease came from tackling risk factors such as smoking and raised blood pressure. Real progress to stop the terrifying rise in Alzheimer’s will come in the same way.

14 December 2013…

A DRUG TO CURE DEMENTIA WITHIN REACH

David Cameron has said that a cure for dementia or a drug that can halt the disease in its tracks will be available by 2025.

This week, the prime minister pledged to double the amount that is spent on research into the devastating illness, and to help speed up the development of treatments.

At a summit in London attended by the health ministers of the G8 nations – including the US, Canada, Japan and France – he said that a cure was ‘within our grasp’.

There are around 800,000 adults in Britain with dementia – and 44 million worldwide – but these numbers are predicted to double in the next 40 years as the population ages.

But despite the vast numbers affected, there are only a handful of treatments available, and these only temporarily slow the advance of the disease. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister unveiled a package of measures, with the health ministers of G8 states promising to share more research across national boundaries and to cut the bureaucratic hurdles which delay treatments becoming available to patients.

Reinforcing the devastating effect of the illness, Mr Cameron said: ‘This disease steals lives, wrecks families and breaks hearts… If we are to beat dementia, we must also work globally, with nations, business and scientists from all over the world working together as we did with cancer, and with HIV and Aids.’

He added: ‘This is going to be a bigger and bigger issue; the key is to keep pushing. The challenge is huge and we are a long way from a cure, but there is hope.’

Last week, researchers from University College London said they hoped that a monthly jab capable of halting dementia in its tracks could become available within the next five years. The drug – solanezumab – is in trials and could be given to patients even before symptoms have developed if the disease is picked up in scans.

Ministers hope they can speed up the time it takes for drugs to come on to the market by removing some of the unnecessary safety checks and regulations.

It can take at least ten years for drugs to be offered to patients after they are first developed – but politicians believe this could be slashed to two or three.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt who also attended this week’s summit, said: ‘The amount going into research is too little … We would like a cure to be available by 2025. It’s a big, big ambition to have. If we don’t aim for the stars we won’t land on the moon.’

Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: ‘The UK has demonstrated global leadership on tackling dementia.’

He added: ‘We have committed to a global plan, better support for people with dementia through research, and the Prime Minister has agreed to narrow the funding gap between dementia and cancer research – something we have long campaigned for… Dementia has come out of the shadows and is centre stage, but we must ensure G8 has a lasting legacy.’

Dementia is a progressive disease, meaning that symptoms cannot be reversed. Symptoms include loss of memory, mood changes, and trouble communicating. The most common types of dementia are Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

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Environment, Global warming, Government, Research, Society

The catastrophe in the Philippines is not due to global warming…

EVIDENCE BASED ARGUMENT

Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the Philippines with devastating and deadly effect a few days ago, is overshadowing the UN climate summit in Warsaw. A group of delegates along with some climate campaigners have been quick to suggest that global warming was to blame for the disaster and catastrophe that is unfolding. Nothing, though, could be further from the truth.

The Atlantic hurricane season, which many forecasters predicted would be more active in 2013 than normal, has turned out to be inaccurate. Take a closer inspection of the cyclones and tropical storms this year and an observer would easily conclude that something quite remarkable has happened. For the first time in 45 years, no major hurricane made landfall. This year, too, has been marked by the fewest number of hurricanes since 1982, and the first since 1994 when no major hurricane formed. Indeed, U.S. weather experts have confirmed that 2013 has been one of the weakest hurricane seasons since modern record-keeping began some 50 years ago. Paradoxically, then, if the alleged cause, global warming, has inhibited hurricanes on one side of the world how has it managed to trigger typhoons on the other side?

Empirical evidence is important here. Whilst climate activists claim that tropical cyclone activity (including the frequency and intensity of typhoons) has increased as the global temperature has gone up, scientific observations published in many journals show that despite the moderate warming during the 20th century, the number of tropical cyclones making landfall in the Philippines did not increase and has remained unchanged for more than 100 years.

Just hours before the typhoon hit the Philippines, authorities moved almost 1 million people to evacuation centres. Sadly, many of these structures collapsed when the tropical storm hit coastal towns and villages. As many as 10,000 people, including 4,000 children, have been killed. The death toll could yet be much higher. Much of the initial destruction that killed so many was caused by winds blowing at 235 kilometres per hour. In retrospect, however, it didn’t really have to be that way.

A superstorm of similar magnitude, Cyclone Yasi, hit Queensland, Australia, in February 2011. The cyclone hit Queensland with an eye of 100km in diameter and wind speeds of up to 285km/h. Crucially, however, local disaster management plans had been implemented long in advance. Evacuation, including that of hospitals, was completed more than four hours before the cyclone struck. Because Australia is an advanced and prosperous nation that can afford to implement highly effective disaster warning systems, not a single person died as a result of this destructive cyclone.

Many people around the world who are exposed and susceptible to natural hazards are increasingly relying on the effectiveness of warning systems. Disaster warning systems are most effective for natural catastrophes that develop gradually and relatively slowly, such as floods or tropical cyclones. Just two months ago, a fierce and ruthless cyclone ripped along India’s east coast. It only killed 25 people as millions of people were evacuated in advance of the tropical cyclone, minimising greatly the number of fatalities. 14 years earlier, more than 10,000 people were killed in a similar cyclone that arrived without much warning.

Even some poor countries known for their vulnerability to cyclones have learnt how to prepare for the recurrent threat and have succeeded in significantly reducing cyclone-related deaths. Bangladesh is one such example. The two deadliest cyclones in Bangladesh’s history occurred in 1970 and 1991, killing 500,000 and 140,000 people respectively. In the last two decades, Bangladesh has introduced better warning systems that have helped to substantially reduce deaths and injuries from cyclones. In 2007, for instance, Bangladesh suffered a severe cyclone that claimed the lives of 4,234 people, a 100-fold reduction compared with the devastating cyclone that hit the country in 1970.

Research carried out by the eminent US scientist, Indur Goklany, with his findings published and documented in numerous papers, states that the average annual deaths and death rates from all extreme weather events has declined by more than 90 per cent since 1920. This decline occurred despite a vast increase in the population at risk and more complete coverage of extreme weather events. Goklany also shows that, globally, the number of deaths and death rates due to storms – including hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes and typhoons – have declined by 47 per cent and 70 per cent respectively since the 1970s.

Economic development and technological advancement has allowed many countries to become increasingly better at coping with and adapting to the effects of extreme weather events. Goklany highlights that many advocate the spending of trillions of dollars to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases, in part to forestall hypothetical future increases in mortality from global warming. But, as he says, spending even a fraction of such sums on the numerous higher priority health and safety problems plaguing humanity would provide greater returns for human well-being.

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